The SOBER Method
Sobriety and addiction recovery for high-achieving professionals. Learn how to quit drinking, beat burnout, and build an alcohol-free life without losing your edge or risking your career. The SOBER Method is a weekly podcast for high-achieving professionals who quietly rely on alcohol, drugs, or other dependencies to cope with stress, pressure, and burnout, and who want a proven path to quit for good without losing their edge. Host Massimo Rigotti is 10 years sober and creator of the SOBER Method, a five-step framework: Stoic, Observe, Behavior, Execute, Restore. He works privately with lawyers, doctors, pharmacists, executives, veterans, and entrepreneurs. Each week: real coaching sessions and interviews with high performers who quit drinking and built alcohol-free lives. If you've ever searched "how to quit drinking without AA or rehab," wondered whether you're a high-functioning alcoholic or a gray area drinker, or asked how to stay sober while running a demanding career, this show was made for you. Topics: how to stop drinking alcohol, high-functioning alcoholism, gray area drinking, sober curious living, relapse prevention, managing stress and burnout without substances, socializing and networking alcohol-free, Stoicism for addiction recovery, and rebuilding confidence after addiction. New episodes weekly. Every episode stands alone. Press play on any one. If you're a professional who drinks to cope, or you love someone who does, start here.
Episodes
You already know why you drink, and it has not stopped you. Leanna Lapidus, a clinical hypnotherapist who spent a decade at Passages Malibu, joins Massimo Rigotti to explain why a craving is a conditioned program installed by repetition and feeling, why the discipline that built a career cannot out-argue it, how relapse starts in thought and emotion long before the glass, and what returns when the program finally changes.
Key Takeaw...He was closing real deals the whole time, so nobody needed to ask what else was going on. Nick Mechanic, a former Hollywood agent, joins Massimo Rigotti to tell the story of a double life that ran on commission checks, cocaine, and methamphetamine, the tells that gave him away long before the law did, the Beverly Hills arrest that did not stop him, and the meetings, sponsor, and purpose that keep him sober today.
Key Takeaways- Pe...
A father who solves problems for a living learns that love cannot control his son's addiction. On this World Mental Health Day 2026, a bonus episode of the SOBER Method Podcast Perspectives series, Katie Rizzo returns, and for the first time a guest is not alone. Her husband, Nick Rizzo, shares the father's side of losing their oldest son, Nicholas, to an accidental overdose.
Nick talks about the anxious, sensitive, soccer-loving bo...
Everyone still thinks you are fine, and that is the most dangerous part. Mark G. Astor, Esq., joins Massimo Rigotti to name the exact story high-achieving professionals tell themselves to hide addiction in plain sight, why success keeps validating that story, where the first crack usually shows, and how Florida's Baker Act (and every state's version of it) can save a life or trap someone when there is no oversight. This is the Obse...
Never the drink first. Always one hot thought you did not catch. Bernard Glos, Ph.D., joins Massimo Rigotti to walk through AFROG (Alive, Feel better, Real, Others, Goals), the five question test from Maxie Maultsby's rational behavior therapy that catches a hot thought before the craving wins, and why addiction-making family rules quietly load the mind for a snap. This is the Observe work of the S.O.B.E.R. Method, for people who w...
Never a drink. Just a kid who learned to disappear into being useful. Lolita Guarin joins Massimo Rigotti to show how constantly needing to produce becomes the adult burnout pattern, how the CALM process (Control, Accept, Limit, Multiply) rebuilds self-trust, and why saying no will not kill you. This is the Observe and Restore work of the S.O.B.E.R. Method, for people who want sobriety and cannot walk into a public room to admit it...
You finally decide to change, and something pulls you back down. Bryan Blackmon joins Massimo Rigotti to show how crabs in a bucket keep you stuck, why the crab is often you, and how CRAB: Clean, Resilient, Adaptability, and Belief hold the climb when the old off switch is gone. This is the Behavior and Execute work of the S.O.B.E.R. Method, for people who want sobriety and cannot walk into a public room to admit it.
Key Takeaways
If life keeps knocking you down, the next bit of strength does not come from carrying it alone. Mia Godfrey joins Massimo Rigotti to show how community, honest pain, and faith rebuild a life after loss, and why numbing only postpones the work. This is the Restore step of the S.O.B.E.R. Method, for people who want sobriety and will not walk into a public room to admit it.
Key Takeaways
- One hour at a time did not give Mia hope. Wha...
Perfectionism is not a badge. It is a lie that keeps high achievers striving, never satisfied, and reaching for a drink. In this conversation Massimo Rigotti sits with Peg O'Connor, PhD, a philosophy professor in long-term recovery, to unpack how perfectionism, shame, and bad faith quietly feed addiction, and why honest self-observation is the start of the S.O.B.E.R. Method. This episode is for high-achieving people who want to sto...
Willpower fails when the voice that says “just this once” sounds like your own good judgment. In this conversation Massimo Rigotti sits with therapist Dr. Robert Jaffe to unpack why that voice is a nervous-system safety pattern, not a character flaw, and why the Observe step of the S.O.B.E.R. Method has to happen before any Stoic choice is possible. This episode is for high-achieving people who want to stop and will not...
You can quit drinking without AA, without rehab, and without a meeting that follows you to work.
I’m Massimo Rigotti. Over 10 years sober. I work privately with lawyers, doctors, and executives who look fine at 9am and pour the second the day ends.
This is a 60-second intro to The SOBER Method. Weekly episodes. A private system, not a meeting. How to quit without AA. How to stay sober when the job still expects drinks. What to ...
Sobriety didn’t fix him. Quitting only removed the symptom. The identity underneath was still running the show.
Massimo sits down with Benjamin Lee, an Air Force bomb disposal veteran who lost himself to addiction after the uniform came off. Now a certified identity transformation coach, author of Sincerely, America, and founder of The Initiation Source, Benjamin explains why getting sober can leave a vacuum, and why that empt...
Successful on paper. Numb at night. If that’s you, the drink isn’t the disease. It’s the junk food you keep feeding a real need.
Nathan Graham is a real estate broker turned AI consultant, nearly four years sober from alcohol and a gaming addiction that cost him jobs and nearly his marriage. He breaks down the four needs that drive every decision: certainty, adventure, significance, and love and connection....
🎁 Want the exact 5 tools I use with clients to interrupt urges before they take over? Grab the free guide here: https://sobermethod.com/5tools
📘 Massimo's new book, Digital S.O.B.E.R. Method https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H93ZTVS9/
Guest: Gaylen Wilson, author and creator of The Monument Method https://www.monumentmethodinstitute.com (read Chapter 1 free)
tiktok.com/@monumentmethod
Description
Massimo Rigotti sits down with G...
📘 Massimo's new book, Digital S.O.B.E.R. Method, is available now! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H93ZTVS9/
🎁 Free gift! S.O.B.E.R. Method's 5 tools: https://sobermethod.com/5tools
🎁 Worried you might already be missing the signs? Start your free 30-day access to ASAP Community, Dave's platform giving parents the facts, prevention tools, and intervention strategies real families use: https://asapcommunity.org/
If you’ve been sober a while, you survived detox. You white-knuckled the first months. Nobody warned you about what comes next.
The danger does not end when the chaos does. It goes quiet. Staying clean years in, when life looks fine and your guard is down, is the real fight.
Marine sergeant and Iraq veteran Adan Castañeda beat heroin, meth, cocaine, and a schizoaffective diagnosis. He’s 10 years sober. In ...
🤝 Connect with Larry on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larry-brant-09394544/
📖 Larry’s book, Restoring the Broken: https://us.amazon.com/dp/B0G8V3WYKY
🎁 Free S.O.B.E.R. Method tools: https://sobermethod.com/5tools
📘 Massimo’s book, Digital S.O.B.E.R. Method: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H93ZTVS9
Description
In this Perspectives episode, Massimo sits with Dr. Larry Brant, Navy chaplain, combat vet...
🤝 Connect with David on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-sichel-blueshirtmedia
🌐 Blueshirt Media: https://www.blueshirtmedia.com
🎁 Free gift! S.O.B.E.R. Method's 5 tools: https://sobermethod.com/5tools
Description
If you have ever reached out for help and received only silence, this episode is for you. Massimo Rigotti speaks with David Sichel, founder of Blueshirt Media, an AI platform built for addict...
🤝 Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisalacycalm/
🎁 Free gift! S.O.B.E.R. Method’s 5 tools: https://sobermethod.com/5tools
📖 Lisa’s memoir, Notes from a Certified Mad Woman, arrives this October.
📖 Massimo’s new book, Digital S.O.B.E.R. Method, is available July 23rd.
Description
Massimo Rigotti sits down with Lisa Lacy, creator of the C.A.L.M. Framework and author of the upcoming m...
🎁 Free 10-week study guide for The Blueprint of Becoming (leader’s + participant’s guides): https://blueprintofbecoming.com/free-resources/
📖 Book: The Blueprint of Becoming by Wesley Farnsworth https://blueprintofbecoming.com
🎙️ Podcast: Unmasked with Wesley Farnsworth – https://wesleyfarnsworth.com/unmasked-podcast/
Website: https://wesleyfarnsworth.com/
🎁 S.O.B.E.R. Method 5 tools: https://sober...
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